Edwin Pahk, VP Of Product Marketing and Business Development, Aquant outlines some key findings from their Service Intelligence Benchmark Report...

The bottom quarter of the workforce costs organizations 80% more than the top quarter. That’s according to the newly released 2020 Service Intelligence Benchmark Report from Aquant. The data reveals that a knowledge gap in the workforce is a major contributor to higher-than-average service costs and service delivery hurdles.

Key Observation: The Skills Gap is Expensive

The report, which analyzed actual service records from more than 2 million work orders, found that the biggest impact on service costs and performance was directly related to the skill level of the workforce.

When the top 25% of the workforce is overloaded with tasks, called on to solve the most complex service issues, and still asked to mentor junior staff, that imbalance is reflected in high attrition, low morale, and poor service. And, the Knowledge Gap is Expensive!

• The bottom quarter of the workforce costs organizations 80% more than the top quarter

How the Service Industry Got Here

Service leaders are navigating a shifting industry. They are juggling multiple challenges that are exacerbating already-existing workforce gaps, including: 

• A retirement wave
• Difficulty recruiting experienced workers
• Changes in customer demands, requiring new skill sets among the workforce
• Pandemic-driven need to limit time spent on job sites

This shift has left service leaders struggling to upskill junior employees and erase the knowledge gap that exists between the highest performing 25% of the workforce, and everyone else.

The Opportunity: Leverage Data to Increase Workforce Knowledge for Big Service ROI

By better understanding workforce performance, and adopting tools that erase the knowledge gap between employees, service organizations will be able to quickly scale performance and reduce costs. 

Here’s why. The report found a close relationship between workforce skill level and service performance.

• Service organizations whose workforces had a smaller discrepancy between top performers (heroes) and lower performers (challengers), or in other terms, -- had a low skills gap -- show higher performance overall versus those with a high skills gap
• Small workforce improvements add up to big ROI. Here’s why:
  • Boosting the bottom 25% of the workforce up modestly to the level of your average performers will result in a nearly 17% savings in service costs
  • Additionally, helping boost your contenders up closer to your top performers will increase ROI by another 17%
• If everyone had the knowledge and skills to perform like the top 25% of the workforce, organizations would save 38% of service costs
•  

Read the full 2020 Service Intelligence Benchmark Report at Aquant.io to learn about cost-effective methods to quickly upskill the workforce, improve KPIs, and drive rapid ROI across the entire service team.

About the 2020 Service Intelligence Benchmark Report

The report measures:

• 52 organizations that include service divisions within OEMs and third-party service organizations across manufacturing, medical devices, capital equipment, HVAC, commercial appliances, and more
• More than 2 million work orders
• From 38,000 technicians
• Totalling $3 billion in service costs
• With an average of 5 years of service data per company

* All data was anonymized

Further Reading:

• Read more about Leadership and Strategy @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/leadership-and-strategy
• Read more about Managing the Mobile Workforce @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/managing-the-mobile-workforce
• Read more news and articles featuring Aquant @ www.fieldservicenews.com/hs-search-results?term=aquant
• Connect with Edwin Pahk on LinkedIN @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwin-pahk-8a066515/
• Find out more about the solutions Aquant offer to help field service companies @ www.aquant.io/
• Follow Aquant on Twitter @ twitter.com/Aquant_io